Daniel had not forgotten, any more than Rosine; he was not proud of his conduct, but it rather softened his remorse to throw the blame on his surroundings, on the tyrannical opinion which had coerced him; but in his heart he was discontented with himself.
Accident came to the assistance of this sulking pair of lovers. Daniel was seriously but not dangerously wounded, and was evacuated back to Paris. During his convalescence he was walking one day near the square of the Bon Marché when he saw Rosine. He stood still a moment but as she came forward, without hesitation, they went on into the Square and began a long conversation, which, beginning by embarrassment, and interrupted by numerous reproaches and avowals, led finally to a perfect understanding between them. They were so absorbed in their tender explanations, that they did not see Madame Clerambault when she came near, and the good lady, overcome by this unexpected meeting, hurried home to tell the news to her husband. In spite of their estrangement, she could not keep this to herself. He listened to her indignant recital, for she could not bear that her daughter should have anything to do with a man whose family had affronted them; and when she had finished he said nothing at first, according to his present habit, until at last he shook his head smiling, and said:
“Good enough.”
Madame Clerambault stopped short, shrugged her shoulders, turned to go, but with her hand on the door of her room she looked back and said:
“These people insulted you; Rosine and you agreed to have nothing more to do with them, and now, your daughter is making advances to this man who has refused her, and you say it is ‘good enough.’ I can’t understand you any longer, you must be out of your mind.”
Clerambault tried to show her that his daughter’s happiness did not consist in agreement with his ideas, and that Rosine was quite right to get rid of the consequences of his foolishness where they affected herself.
“Your foolishness … that is the first word of sense that you have said in years.”
“You see yourself that I am right,” said he, and made her promise to let Rosine arrange her romance as she pleased.
The girl was radiant when she came in, but she said nothing of what had passed. Madame Clerambault held her tongue with great difficulty, and the father saw with tender amusement the happiness that shone once more on the face of his child. He did not know exactly what had happened, but he guessed that Rosine had thrown him and his ideas overboard—sweetly of course, but still—the lovers had made it up at their parents’ expense, and both had blamed with admirable justice the old people’s exaggerations on either side. The years in the trenches had emancipated Daniel from the narrow fanaticism of his family, without impairing his patriotism, and Rosine in exchange had gently admitted that her father had been mistaken. They agreed with little difficulty, for she was naturally calm and fatalistic, which suited perfectly with Daniel’s stoical acceptance of things as they were. They had decided, therefore, to go through life together, without paying any more attention to the disagreements of those who had come before them, as the saying is—though it would be more exact to say, those whom they were leaving behind them. The future also troubled them little; like millions of other human beings they only asked their share of happiness at the moment and shut their eyes to everything else.
Madame Clerambault was annoyed that her daughter said nothing of the events of the morning, and soon went out again; Rosine and her father sat dreamily, he by the window, smoking, and she with an unread magazine before her. She looked absently about the room, with happy eyes, trying to recall the details of the scene between her and Daniel; her glance fell on her father’s weary face, and its melancholy expression struck her sharply. She got up, and standing behind him, laid her hand on his shoulder and said, with a little sigh of compassion that tried to conceal her inward joy:
“Poor little Papa!”
Clerambault looked at Rosine, whose eyes, in spite of herself, shone with happiness:
“And my little girl is not ‘poor’ any longer, is she?”
Rosine blushed: “Why do you say that?” she asked.
Clerambault only shook his head at her, and she leaned forward laying her cheek against his:
“She is no longer poor,” he repeated.
“No,” she whispered, “she is very, very rich.”
“Tell me about this fortune of hers?”
“She has—first of all—her dear Papa.”
“Oh, you little fraud!” said Clerambault, trying to move so that he could see her face, but Rosine put her hands over his eyes:
“No, I don’t want you to look at me, or say anything to me. …” She kissed him again, and said caressingly:
“Poor dear little Papa.”
Rosine had now escaped from the cares that weighed on the house, and it was not long before she flew away from the nest altogether, for she had passed her examinations and was sent to a hospital in the South. Both the Clerambaults felt painfully the loss to their empty fireside.
But the man was not the more lonely of the two. He knew this and was sincerely sorry for his wife, who had not either the strength of mind to follow his path, nor to leave him. As for him he felt that now, no matter what happened,
